FAREWELL ALASKA

Today is my last day with the firm & I'm sad to go. I won't miss the eleven hour work days in the Artic during the winter-time but I will miss the people & the fun projects. BUT my day was brightened when I licked the envelope & dropped my last IDP record in the mail to NCARB(National Council for Architectural Registration Board). This means that I can now apply to sit for my licensing examinations. Whoop-whoop hands in the air!

This past month has been a fond farewell from the State. Crazy attention from Governor Palin abeated. But great weather and very Alaskani things everywhere. I turned on the radio & there was an ad for banjos!

Some great berry picking. I had one of those near death experiences picking raspberries at my friend Rachel's house. She was on vacation when her raspberries were in season. So she offered that I come over & pick how ever many that I wanted. I was expecting just a couple but in fact, Rachel could open a raspberry farm. They were everywhere & the largest ones were in a slough. I saw all of these golf ball sized berries hanging in there so I gracefull went to pick them through the bracken. What I had walked on was a tree fall. Ya' know, where rotting trees fall over a large cravass just waiting for someone to walk over it to break away to there death. Also a great place for badgers to live. I broke through & stopped falling at my waist but I was completely expecting my legs to be shredded by badgers in mating season. And if that isn't enough, I went back for the cranberries & while I was in the forest (like when am I out of the forest) it got quiet & I heard snorting coming from the trees. Just what I need, to be gored to death by a pissed off moose during mating season.

I have been spending some time with my friend Jennie. She had never been to Delta so I took her there. This is Rika's Roadhouse on the way to Delta. I love their crazy loooking chickens!

The building code is very leanient in Alaska. An example of this is this house you drive by on the way to Delta in North Pole. That's Jennie spazing out.
Itchy has become fully adapted to living here. She has discovered that the warmest place to sun bath is on the compost heap. Intelligent if you think about it. Not only is it in the sun but its producing heat because its cooking vegetative waste. Gone through a lot of doggy shampoo though.

JENNIE TOOK ME ON HER COMPANY TRIP TO DENALI NATIONAL PARK. We got on the train @ 7 am in the morning. It took 4 hours to get down there because you travel at around 35 MPH. Plus we had to stop on the way because the brakes were smoking.

It gave me the great chance to take a photo of Mt. McKinley. You rarely get to see it because its covered by clouds. My lucky day.



Everyone should have a cool shot of the train turning around the bend. That's Jennie's reflection in the window by the way. We were trying to escape 'The Fungus' which is a completely different & long story that I won't get into.

On the trip down we got served breakfast of what else other than Reindeer Sausage.





When we arrived at the park we first went to the vistor center to see when the buses to Savage River were leaving. Unfortunately for our timing, it was the end of the season so they had reduced the buses to one & it was running so that we would of missed our train back. Instead we went into Glitter Gluch to be tourists and eat lunch. The best burrito I had in Alaska was at the Salmon Bake--Halibut. Ofcourse, it wasn't a "real" salmon bake if you want to be technicial.

We came back to the park and took a hike. We had such a good time in the cool sun. I don't think it would of been as pleasant if we had gone a week before. There are two seasons of smells in the fall. The first decay makes everything smell like dog poop. The second decay smells like lillies or roses. You find a good spot and just stop to breathe.




My friends in the Lower 48 don't understand when I say that I am going foraging. I had to take a picture of this bush as an example. You see all those little red berries covering it. Those are cranberries. Yum.

We were having such a lovely walk but I thought that we should turn around & head back. We were told to be back to the train by 4pm. At 3:52, I get a call from The Fungus asking where we were. The person that had our tickets said that we hadn't showed up yet. At that time we were right across the street. So we hung up & than he called me right back and I said this:

V: "What?! What?!"
The person on the other line: "Are you planning on catching the train at Healy?"
V: "Who is this?"
The person on the other line: "The Conductor! Where are you?!"
V: "Ten feet from the train." Whimper in my voice.
The Conductor: "Well get on! We're all waiting for you!"

So Jennie & I jump on our car. Everyone in the car stand up to applaud us & take pictures. When they stopped clapping, I made an announcement: "Whoever gave my phone number to the Conductor---Meet me in the parking lot when we get to the station." They all laughed.

Miss you more than getting into arguements with men that KNOW how to wield a sledge hammer,
V

I'm Inspired by....

Wim DeIvoye
Check out his Gothic Work made from iron gates & railings:
The stain glass windows in a chapel he did done with x-ray collages:
His team that tattooed pigs. His website shows step-by-step proceedure. This photo makes me think of group of sailors after their first night in port.

Go see more of his work at his website www.wimdeivoye.de

Shit I'm Diggin'

HAIR HATS! Nagi Noda is a genius!

Check out this website for more animals: www.uchu-country.com/top_en.html

If it ain't broke.....

Do you remember my incidient last April at the Urban Tribal workshop? If you want to scroll down to that page it will tell you that I exploded a blood vessel on the top of my foot, went to the doctor & got x-rays that showed that I had been prancing along on a broken foot. They gave me Motrin, an ice pack & instructions to call them back in three weeks if the pain continued. It did so I did & they told me 'okay' call us back in three weeks if the pain continues. In that three weeks, I received a bill for $245 for Motrin & an ice pack. So I decided to take some time to contimplate which hurt more, the foot or the bill.

Well its been over a year & I now can't feel my toes on that foot. So I sucked it up, accepted that I had crappy insurance & then instead of a vacation this year I would get my foot fixed. This time not to the same PA. I decided to go to a friends office @ Interior Community Health Center. It doesn't have any fancy machines (like an x-ray) but they do have a sliding scale for payments. Plus I get to see an actual doctor!! I honestly thought that the only way that I could get to see a real doctor in Alaska if I got mauled by a bear.

At first I was dubious of this doctor because he went all over ligiments & nerves how they can do one thing & then feel a different way. He said to call him up in a week & a half if I hadn't heard from him to remind him to look @ my x-rays. At that point I wanted to scream but he took me very seriously a week later when I was a dance class & my foot cracked so loud that they stopped the class- then the next day it was as if my pinky toe was completely gone.

I have a Marching Fracture in my bone connected to that pinky. They call it that because it doesn't happen instentaniously but over long period of exerted use. Doing what you ask? Releves. But that might not be the cause of the pain & lack of sensation. So off I went yesterday to get an MRI. They sent me into the billing lady first to verify my information & she asked me if I wanted to pay the 20% co-pay. I said sure but then she hit me with $305 co-pay & I gasped. She asked me if that was alright & I told her 'No! but what's my other option- paralysis?' This is the first time that I actually hoped that they find something wrong.

I'll keep you informed,but until then I miss you more than coughing in an MRI & they have to start the whole series over again....twice, V

Shit I'm Diggin'

It is sooo slow in the office recently. After you finish building an airport what do you do to fill up all that time you spent hours upon hours detailing & writting consultant correspondences? Surfing the web!

I've gotten into J-Rock lately & got set up on an announcement bulletin anytime that a band was coming to the US I would get a newsletter about when & where their appearance would be. The band that I'm excited about lately is Quaff.

They represent a new trend in Japan called Neo-Japanese. Instead of imitating english speaking rock groups, they are now trying to insert more traditional Japanese attributes to their music or look. It can range from bands wearing kimonos (with baseball hats) to using traditional instruments. Quaff does the later, they use the twin voice technique; UTA & TUZURI. Uta is the melody and Tuzuri is closely what I can compare to rap. The guy that does the tuzuri uses a fan as a prop....which means he's the only rapper that uses a fan in history. Femine to Westerners but in Japan, I've only seen yakuza (gangsters) welding fans, so I guess its very tough.

You can get their music online or you can download their latest lp [The Explosion] on itunes. My favorite song on the album is Saihara-no-miyako, if your computer shows Romanji. Or you can go see them in concert this month. Most Japanese bands play LA. If you are lucky they'll play Dallas. If they're really popular than they'll fly all the way to NYC. Which boggles my mind that Quaff is playing in Atlanta?!

The Mira Betz Weekend

After work on Friday I ran home to get all of my costumes & run back to town for the Fairytale performance. Like most bellydance workshops, you have a performance to show the local talent that is taking the classes & the instructor that has flown into teach. This was the first workshop hosted as Cold Fusion.

It came off really well. The first dance was of the entire troupe (except Jennie because she was in Colorado at a funeral) doing Rachael's choreography to Bollywood filmy music. Rachael is a great Indian dance instructor. The rest of the troupe had been working on this dance for three months, I only had one month to catch-up. It was quite a curve since I had never danced filmy before.
Here we are backstage in our new awesome panel skirts & corset tops. Man is my hair lightening up! Also notice all of our Alaskan tans?
There were a bunch of dancers up from the south that had some great routines. They were so good that I was getting nervous that Liz & my's dance wouldn't be any good. Plus we were going on right before the headliner, Mira Betz. But the fear was dismissed the instant Little Red Riding Hood, skipped onto the stage....followed slinkily by yours truely-The Big Bad Woof, dressed in cheetah print & bell bottoms. The crowd started cheering when 1 minute in I grabbed Liz & started to do a tango. By the time I started disco dancing I could barely hear the music. I was amazed! You can usually get the standard calls from the other dancers while you perform, but the whole crowd was into it. Our end pose is all Saturday Night Fever, with Liz crouching at my feet & I'm wide legged with my arm pointing to the sky. The crowd went wild & gave us a standing ovation!!
Doesn't Liz look KAWAII?! You wouldn't know that she was completely stressed about defending her thesis this week. Which I went to. I will say that I understood maybe 45% of her talk on Beringian Polytomy but that's only because she speaking in English..I think.

Back to the workshop, I got to spend some wonderful training time with Mira Betz. She is a fantastic dancer & went really into isolations. Stuff that I have still not mastered since I went to a Bellyqueen's class in the Village last summer. I got to spend four days with her & even got to have to private lessons. Itchy on the other hand got to spend days & nights with Mira. Itchy got evicted from my apartment last week because the management didn't believe that she was a cat. Idiots! So I had to find her a place to stay for ten days until I got a new place or I would have to pay $25/day to have her stay in the apartment. Mary was very kind to let her stay over with her & Mira. Itchy slept with Mira every night & they became great pals. Here's the new friends.
I hate to say it, but I'm a little bit happy that this will be the last CRAZY weekend full of activites for a while. The only thing that I've got going on this weekend is a couple of BBQs...maybe I'll go see Wall-E. So tootles until something interesting happens.

Miss you more than heat pads, V

Shit I'm Digging

This is the work of one awesome Adam- Monster Size Monster Chandliers. I must have one! Check out all of his Cthulhu looking chandliers http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=30560249
I'm wondering what came first in this room. The chandlier was designed to go in the room, or the room was designed to go with the chandlier?

Midnight Sun

It was the biggest celebration in town this past weekend. I would even dare to say bigger than Christmas. The leading factor being that its warm! We finally reach 80F this Saturday during the Midnight Sun Festival.

I got asked back to do another street painting at the festival. Instead of doing my own piece and then having the other girls share a piece 'we' decided to all work on my piece. That decision was made the day before when the girls hadn't picked their own piece to do:) So this time around I decided to tackle the ever present, nagging question, "Why don't you do Alaskan art?" Never when I was in Colorado did anyone ever as me to do Coloradan art. I discussed this with other people & came to believe that this is only so with transplants. People that move to Alaska are obsessed with anything & everything Alaskan. Fine be that way, but its rediculious to want Alaskan art as a street painting. That would be either a landscape or a painting of a native....stuff that you can see everywhere!

Needless to say, I decided to give them what they want & did a piece I titled:

Napoleon Crossing the Alaskan Range on Moose

I decided to adapt David's Napoleon Crossing the Alps to make it into 'Alaskan art'....just add a moose. A lot of people laughed, some still asked why I didn't do Alaskan art.

The next day I went to an outdoor wedding. I had to wear dark stockings & tennies because I was so sore & bruised. I was embrassed to go like this but when I showed up- I was the most dressed up besides the wedding party.

The reception was on the sternwheeler Tanana Chief. We board @ 7pm & returned @ 10pm. Since this was a Chinese wedding, for the first time I can actually say that I was Shanghaied:) This wedding was helpful for my research. I'm under the belief that there is no such thing as a free meal in Alaska. I have only been to one dinner that all I had to do was show up. Every other occasion it was potluck. So what was the wedding? You got it, potluck! Though they called it a heritage meal. You were supposed to bring a meal representing your own heritage. I brought English trifle; easy to make, a bitch to find a dish for. I ended up having to use an oversized brandy glass that I got from the flora decoration section of Michael's.

The conversation was good. I learned a new bit of trivia. The term 'Poop Deck' comes from the sternwheelers. The bathrooms are located at the back, infront of the wheels. When the toilet is used & the wheels are turning, guess where the poop gets flung? Good times.

Miss you more than people that got their art exprience other than from the internet, V

A moment of Zen

Itchy goes everywhere with me, even to work. My dance partner Rachel had to take of picture of Itchy while we were practicing at UAF's Great Hall (one of the only free practice space in town). She looks so at peace in such a vast space.

Bento box love

Just a short note about the awesomness that is bento boxes. Two weeks ago I was roaming around the storage/closet organization section of Fred Meyer's & there sitting on the clearance shelf were two Japanese bento boxes. With my added coupon, I paid for 12 cents each. Score!

So I went & got this suggested bento boxes cookbook:

Then I decided that once a week, I would make bento for myself & my new roommate Jenny. So I did the grocery shopping which in Fairbanks is more like a scavenger hunt. Atleast now I'm more knowledgable about shopping up here. Example-- at the Korean store, when there was only one container of Umeboshi left, I wasn't planning on cooking with it this week but I want to make some onigiri with it, I decided to buy it anyway. I wanted chesnuts for New Year's....they restocked them last week. Understand?

This is today's lunch. My first attempt @ a bento box lunch:

To use English terms: Daikon rice sprinkled with GREAT pepperoni pizza (tastes better than you would think) furigaki; sauted lotus root, marinated steamed mackerel (tastes great! smells awful); Japanese omelet (meaning there's sake in there); fruit on a fruit stick (I'm excited about the fruit stick, I found it at the new party store while waiting for my I/M test:); & Sesame balls....don't ask me where you can buy them because I made those bad boys all on my own. Yup, my number one favorite in all Chinese buffets is the Sesame Ball & I figured out how to make them. My roommate had them for the first time last night & she quoted from Kung Fu Panda "There is not cost for awesomeness!"

Miss you more than chopsticks, V

Costume Malfunction

More dancing & art.
Every Friday night @ 7pm in June, I will be dancing @ the gazebo in Pioneer Park with Tundra Carvan. This summer is going to be a completely different experience from last summer because now I know more than two of their dance routines & am in the professional troupe. With the professional troupe comes the bedlah costume. My measurements were taken & sent to Turkey, then late last month my beaded & sequins bra & belt set came in....6 inches too big. I asked the other ladies where to take them to get professionally altered & they told me that they would get back with me. I waited & waited until Thursday night I decided to pin it myself. Brilliant!...that is until I was dancing 'The Huntress' & the back of my bra came detached. I finished the dance but it was almost a breathtaking performance. Atleast I wasn't the only one that had a malfunction. On the next song, Liz's bra snapped open in the front. Ouch!

I've been doing a lot of street painting. One during the Memorial Day weekend on the river walk then this past Friday out front of The Stash store for their grand opening on the First Friday Art Walk.

Ellen did Andy Warhol's bull

I did his Siberian Tiger

And Jennie did his monkey

Besides streets I've done some signs for a friend's tea shoppe. (I haven't taken any pictures of that) I've been doing so much that I started to get worried if I'll have enough chalks for the Midnight Sun Festival next weekend. So I called up my friend Kitty Kim to go to Meininger's in Denver & pick me up some of the HUGEMONOUS Prang chalks. She politely called me with Meininger's store manager to tell me that Prang has discontinued those chalks. My earth has shattered!! They were huge & only costed $1.90/chalk, if I want to get the same size chalk in another brand then it will cost me $14/chalk! There is no justice for artists?

Luckily there was repreve this week when Fairbanks had its first goth club night. Yippee! I had just moved into my new apartment with wonderfule roommate, Jenny, & had only unpacked a couple of boxes when I found out about the evening. So I had to dig through the back of my truck to find something to wear. Trust me, I may be living in an Upper Fairbankian ghetto, but I still didn't want all of my belongings displayed on the parking lot for neighbors to scope out. But I did do it all for one skirt & a dress. No only does fashion make you insane, its also painful.

The whole party was being thrown because Kynt & Vixen from the Amazing Race were coming through town. Nice people, but I didn't have the guts to tell them that I hadn't owned a tv since 1994. There was an amazing turn-out of 20 people! Whoo hoo! Of that 20 people I think 6 of us had actually listened to the music before.

Weekends

Now that the airport is open, I don't have to work 60 hours a week. I'm left with weekends to do...something? Since its summer that means I switch into summer performances. I dance atleast once every week. This past weekend I danced at Birch Hill (a cross country ski rec area) for the Clucking Blossom fest. I learned something very important; there's a reason why Folk Festivals are always FREE. But we had a great turn out of people that left the bluegrass performances to come watch us dance. Afterwards I wish I had a tape recorder. My voicemail would say, "Would the bellydancer with the tiny dog please come out of the bathroom?!" Good times...plus I got see a goat pulled chariot! Did you know that when they don't want to pull you any longer they just kneel down & let you slide backwards down the hill?

On Sunday I went to hang out with some local comic book artists that I know. I met these folks @ the 24 Hour Comic Challenge last September. They kept on inviting me to come it their Comic Jam but I was always in the office. I'm so glad that I had a chance to go because I had a great time. Brandon would of loved it. It had sessions of comic, surrealist-like games. Like this one:

The jams are like round robins. The first person chooses a noun; in this example it was depressed frog. They pass it to the person on their right & that person chooses a verb. The second person passes it to the person on their right who has two minutes to come up with the first stile. It keeps on going around like that every two minutes with, in this case, 6 sheets rotating around the table.

The next experiment was even more surrealistic. This time you label your first page with a #1 in the corner because you can get these messed up because you're moving so fast. Then you're ready to get started.

1) The first person takes 1 minute to write down a noun. Then they fold it over so that the next person to their right doesn't see it.

2)The second person takes 1 minute to write an action. Then they had it to the person to their right.

3)The third person gets to see the noun & action. They have two minutes to draw something. Then they fold over the noun & action & hand it to the person to their right.

4) The fourth person only gets to see the image at this point. They only have 1 minute to write a caption. Then they fold over the image & hand it to the person on their right.

5) The fifth person only gets to see the caption. They have 2 minutes to draw an image that relates to the caption. The fold over the caption & had it to the person on their right.

So you see how this goes on for about a half an hour. This is what the first page looked like: After the four pages we all stood up & did show & tell time of the sets. It was hilarious to see how they would progress & transform like a game of telephone. This one ended up with a cowboy getting his legs waxed.

Miss you more than the laugh I had on Saturday night when a 400 lb man told me had a Smurf tattoo, V

Shit I'm Digging

I can't say that I get a lot of mail from product representatives on a daily basis, but I do get it on the weekly. Usually its for a new flooring material or some waterproofing membrane. But every once in awhile I'll get something fun like Tibetan shrines, Gothic ruins for your backyard or hidden doors in the bookshelf.

This week I got this from Sky Factory. The produce film images to put over your fluorescent troffers. You see them in dentist offices & such, but when I went into their portfolio they had this image from someone's family room:

OPENING DAY OF THE FAIRBANKS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT!!

The day has finally come! Two plus years in the making & the airport was turned on at 3:30am Alaska Time. Its been written up in the newspaper & talked about on the radio......thus far, the only complaints have been that there's too much glass. Its like trying to convince people to turn into the slide when they lose control on the ice- but I'm here to inform you that in large buildings LIGHTING is more expensive than HVAC. Sounds counter intuitive but its true. Happily I've been informed that there have been no complaints about the design:)

So without further ado OPENING DAY!

Here is the World's Most Expensive Bicycle Rack

No lines at Check-In
Follow the Caribou Tracks (& NO! There are no wolf or bear tracks WHY? because I LIKE ANIMALS WITH ANTLERS so don't go there!)
Main circulation Spine:

Up to Security Queuing: (yup, that's an ATV up there)

Greeter Lobby: what you are looking at is steel panels that each one was rusted. It came out sooo beautifully that the time it took to convince the airport to allow us to do it & the research to get it just right was well worth it.

DINOSAUR SANDBOX: this was just a whim that I came up with after talking to kids about the "Airport of the Future". What started as a fence to stop back flow turned into a play box with art in a storefront system around it....note, the art isn't there yet so the glass is temporary. Once the glass is there it will have 3D glass suspended in laser cut still looking like ice flowing down the river. This little sandbox got its own page in the newspaper?

Looking towards baggage claim:

Looking from the end of Baggage Claim back to the Mezz:

And this is for my Architect friends. Look at this detail & weep wussies!

Miss you more than popping the champagne bottle,

V

Shit I'm Digging

I send emails to friends periodically titled "Shit I'm Digging" usually referring to things that I have discovered or techniques that I have learned that I wanted to share with them. Last time I sent one to my friend Tawnya she mentioned that instead of her having to forward it to other people that would also find it usefull that I should probably put these on my blog. I have smart friends:)

Yesterday, I was sitting on my parents couch flipping through their magazines. On page 36 of Budget Travel there is an article for an online program called Snapmania. Now if you own Photoshop then you can already alter photos. Ofcourse, the last time I checked, a home copy of Photoshop is $600, but for $4.90/month you can have a subscription to snapmania. Here's what you do: Lets say you want to take a picture of a statue while you're on vacation but you can't stop the other tourists from walking into your shot. You take 3 pictures of that statue, upload them into snapmania, & the program cuts & pastes those photos together until all of the tourists are removed.

Sounds dubious? Then don't take my word for it & check it out at snapmania.com.

Miss you more than Photoshop,
V

The Difficult Side of Florida

I shouldn't let my blog go so long unmaintained but a family emergency has kept me away. When I went to visit my parents in Denver for the holidays, my father had a cold that was strapping him of energy. My Mum wanted him to go to see a doctor but he believed that once he got back to the warmth of Florida he would get better. He didn't. Around Valentine's Day he lost his appetite & couldn't walk past the end of the block. So on V-Day itself, he went to the doctor & was immediate emitted to the hospital. He was diaginosis with aggressive Leukemia.

The next morning I told my firm, got a leave of absense then started packing up my apartment into the back of my truck. The plan was to drive down, pick up my sister & be in Florida for whatever was going to happen. It took me two weeks to sell all of my furniture & get out of my apartment. I had the time because he had pneumonia & they had to cure that before they started chemo therapy. When they started chemo- his body wasn't accepting the platlettes but killing them & flushing them into his lungs. So he was moved to the ICU. I parked my truck in a friend's garage & got the next plane down.

My Mum & sister were there to pick me up at the airport. My uncle & aunt were there too. I hate to be Proustan but the man in the hospital bed was not my father. In a dark lit room, a sick man laid there scaring me.

He got better & started recovery. My uncle, aunt & sister return to their respective homes. For a month, my Mum & I traded days that we went to see him. Every other day I was at the Tri-Rail Station by 9am. Down to the Metrorail station to transfer southbound. Get off at Civic Center and cross the street to the University of Miami Cedars Hospital. Check in & then up to the penthouse (otherwise known as the 13th floor). Put on a mask & visit with my father, bring his mail, comb out the clumps of hair, eat chocolates, walk the hall. Then leave by 2pm to catch the Metrorail to take the two hour return trip. Return to Boynton Beach by 4:30pm to be greeted by my Mum & Itchy at the station.

After the month my father's platlettes number were stabilized to bring him home. He was home for three days & one St. Patrick's Day meal before he went back to another hospital to continue the chemo. After six days we got him back & he's been going for check-ups twice a week. The last check up they said he needs to go back for more chemo.

I feel that worse situation that might be ahead will make me lose balance so I'm going with my father's positive attitude. He's talking on the physical plane & making plans for a summer return to Colorado. Plus he's returned to telling me what I should do with my life......its good to be around my Dad.

Now to living in a retirement community when you're not retired: All the times that I didn't get hit on while I was in Alaska......making up for it now! Next, how is it I can be a great shuffleboarder but a crappy curler, aren't they the same thing? Also, there are three languages spoken in South Florida- Spanish, Creole & New Yorker....I'm only marginally fluent in all three. Furthermore, there is some serious propaganda in the works !Grandmas & grandpas are mean, mean people.

Miss you more then good health,
V

There & back again

Bad things come in threes? What if there's more? I won't go into the details but it hasn't been nice.

I dropped off Itchy in Denver over the holidays. I was over joyed when I went because I got a call from my sister before I got on the airplane. She got engaged! I adore her fiance so nothing could be better.

There was a blizzard while I was there so I had to rent a car instead of ride my scooter & I didn't get to see everyone that I wanted to see:(

So Itchy is in Florida & I'm lonely. I could go on forever about all the little Itchy things that I miss. But I'll sum up my last month by cutting to the quick. Itchy is wintering in Florida; my apartment smells like fried anchoives; I was dumped; I've been stopped by the cops five times in the new year- twice in one day during an armed robbery (why do alaskans hold up gun stores? it never works out); I've worked 60 hours every week this year; my contract ended & I'm a free agent which makes me dread...my yearly review.

Miss you, miss you, miss you.

To wrap up November

This is a picture taken looking out the window of my office. The fire department were practicing rescuing people out of the river. Coming from a sunny local, its depressing to say that this was taken @ 2 in the afternoon. We are truely into winter now. No more 40 degree heat waves of November.

Wrapping up November: I'm not comfortable going to coworkers houses for Thanksgiving. I feel like a foreign exchange student at a family gathering. I don't understand their traditions & am always over-dressed. So I opted to go to Endor for turkey day. They decided to celebrate the OTHER Indians & have a bollywood meal. This included all of the participants changing into Indian clothing. The food took a long time to cook so they had planned to spend that time in the sauna. I was all game until they didn't offer even a towel. I can't spend an hour naked in the heat with complete strangers, then sit down to a table for dinner & small talk.......hippies! So I opted to stay inside & stir the pots. After a wonderful dinner, we watched Bollywood! Definately not traditionally Indian, but any Bollywood movie can be made to a drinking game.

Rules for when to take a drink during Bollywood movies:
1) Whenever an actor does a monologue inwhich they talk about themselves in third person.
2) Whenever a midget is used in place of a child.
3) Anytime that you see nipple. Doesn't matter what sex, male or female.
4) Anytime there is a double pevic thrust, either forwards or backwards.
5) Intermission. All Bollywood movies are three hours long & they have do have an "interval."
6) Whenever an actor whistle talks.
7) Anytime you see a goat.
Last, but not least,
8) Anytime there is a Bollywood kiss. Kissing is prohibited to be shown on Indian cinema. They can show a man licking a woman's inner thigh but no lip-on-lip interaction. Bollywood kisses are generally a close look in the eyes while they breath on another or a choregraphed head bob during a dance sequence.

Note: If you do intend to hold a Bollywood party, remember that it is required to attempt to dance along during the choregraphed scenes. (That can be up to four a movie.) So if you can pet a dog with one hand, turn the lightbulb with the other while doing the Roger Rabbit you'll be fine.

Like Technocolour would say in Ram Jaane K-L-A-S-S-S(finished),
Victoria

Girdwood

Have you ever needed such a break from your everyday that you get excited over the stupidest things?......Like going to the American Institute of Architects Convention.

I didn’t go to the convention last year because of Brandon’s death. I didn’t want to be sitting around the office during that time this year. So I pushed the principal’s of my firm to send us to Intern Bootcamp and the Convention down South.

So Rachael, James & I flew down on a commuter flight @ 6am. We showed up at the airport & we got laminated ticket stubs as our flight tickets. Then when we climbed onto the airplane we couldn’t stand up it was so small, but how great it was when the heat kicked on at our feet. I slept like a baby. My secretary reserved me a ‘mid-size’ vehicle. Apparent a Ford Escalde is now considered ‘mid-size’.

The Intern Bootcamp was a day filled with calculations and statics with a Structures professor from Virginia who was originally from Iran. He went over the General Structures and Lateral Forces portion of the Architects Registration Exam. While it hurt my head to remember four semesters of structural engineering, I think if I took this course anywhere else I wouldn’t of heard all about the earthquake forces. Anyway, we left early so I could go to the one art store to pick up the supplies that I ordered in September.

We drove down South to Girdwood. The big ski resort to stay in the only resort in Alaska. It was so fancy that I thought I was elsewhere. It had slippers & robes, a towel warmer and everything! The convention itself was nice but I wish we could move forward in just trying to convince architects to build sustainable & teach us more about it.


I snowed the entire time because its warmer down South than Fairbanks. By Sunday morning I had to shovel two feet of snow off the top of the SUV. I couldn’t reach it all even climbing up on the beast, so by the time we drove into Anchorage the snow drift on top of the SUV slid down the front and I had to make an emergency stop in a gas station to shovel it off. If your ever around the Stevens International Airport, pull into Garrett’s Tesoro Gas Station. The first thing that you’ll notice is the fake flowers duct taped on the pumps. Then when you go indoors, only a little portal is available to see out. The windows were covered with images of this Asian window. Then if figured out that she was the owner’s wife by the banners you could buy of her in her Miss Congeniality Asia. I really wanted to pry when at the cash register there were bobble-heads of Mr. Garrett you could buy. Where do you get those made? Christmas presents folks!

Miss you more than red-headed bobble heads, Victoria

ArtiCon & Diwali

It was the big event weekend. Dancing both Saturday and Sunday at the two big dance events for me. Saturday was articon. I went early to see how the packaging for sipping steams turned out. I went to a tea party a couple of weekends ago that invited a couple that imported tea from china and was selling it locally. They saw me drawing at the comic challenged and asked for me to illustrate some images for a fantasy line of teas called “realms of the tea”. So I stayed up every night for two weeks producing fantasy images of a human, an elf, a fairy, a dwarf and an anthead mystic. The work was exciting because I’m still on a high from the comic challenge but even better is that they are going to pay me in tea!

The printing was done quickly with a dot matrix & without taking it to their graphic designer. The positive note was that I got free tea at the Con. Sipping “Dwarf” tea while getting a drawing made of me in Manga style was geekiest but best way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

That evening I danced with Cold Fusion for the Masquerade Ball. It was a built-up event. I made friends with the Goth Show DJ and she plugged our performance like a carnival barker. I was really nervous when I first went on and made some mistakes but my flapper dance wins them every timeJ

This is me with is our new dancer Rachael & the veil that she brought me back from India.



This is me with Liz doing our Japanese school girl pose.


Diwali came in a hurry this year. We didn’t have enough time to teach the new dancers a new routine or costume them all. So we did a Solka, various poses that told a prayer. Once again I got dressed by an Indian woman. This year I’m going to learn how to wrap a sari…..it kind of embarrassing. Plus I need to use too many safety pins. I swear that the sari makers and the safety pin manufacturers are in collusion.


Miss you more than a second helping of Naan, Victoria